...and then they win one

The life of the Phils' fan is not for the faint of heart. They win again today, and the Cubs rally to pull one out from the Astros, leaving them a game out in the wild care race.

The division race is over, with the Braves leading by 5 (magic number = 2). They have 3 at home against the Rockies and finish with a 3-game series in Miami. If it's hard to see how the Phils would win all their remaining games, how much harder is it to imagine the Braves losing all but one of theirs? Ain't gonna happen.

Here's how things shape up for the final week:

Astros: Monday off; 2 @ St. Louis (Oswalt@Morris; Backe@Carpenter); 4 (home) vs the Cubs (Rusch@Rodriguez; Zambrano@Clemens; Williams@Pettitte; Maddux@Oswalt)

Phils: 3 (home) vs the Mets (Seo@Myers; Zambrano@Lieber; Trachsel@Padilla); Thursday off; 3 @ Washington (Lidle@Patterson; Myers@Carrasco; Lieber@Loaiza)

I like the Phils' match-ups against the Mets. The Lidle versus Patterson pairing could be trouble. As for the 'Stros, Backe and Rodriguez are easily the weakest starters - of course, when the other three are Oswalt (twice), Clemens, and Pettitte, that analysis falls into the "no sh!t Sherlock" category.

Where does that leave things? With the Phils, who knows? But with the Cubbies pulling their game out against the Astros, it gives us die-hards hope that something good could come out of all this.